Back in the late 1990′s the A&E Channel ran a series titled The Unexplained. Most episodes dealt with woo like ghosts, flying saucers and bigfoot. But one episode explored “human transformations.” It portrayed a guy who had become totally obsessed with the Star Trek universe and wanted to try to live in it as much as possible. So he rebuilt the interior of his house to resemble the sets from The Next Generation, wore reproduction Trek costumes, attended the conventions and pretty much adopted the stereotypical Trekkie loser lifestyle. As I recall, the show says that his wife wound up leaving him. (Apparently a Trek obsession can have the effect of lowering a man’s status.)
But that episode also profiled Cindy Jackson, who grew up as a plain-looking farm girl in Ohio yet aspired to try to look like her Barbie doll, and to try to live like a real-life Barbie. So when she came of age, she moved to London (and why wouldn’t Barbie live in London instead of a small town in Ohio?) and made a living there somehow as a rock musician. (That raises questions about the UK’s immigration laws. Can you get permission to live in the UK as an irregularly employed bohemian?) When her father died, she inherited some money and spent it on cosmetic procedures. She then capitalized on her improved appearance to move into more fashionable British social circles (I suspect as a kind of escort or courtesan, but the show didn’t say), somehow made more money, had more work done and eventually used her experiences with this branch of medicine to start a consulting business for other women who want cosmetic procedures:
Both of these individuals seem to have emotional problems they probably could have dealt with in more constructive ways. But I came away from watching that episode respecting Cindy a lot more than the Trekkie. You wouldn’t think so at first, but Cindy articulated feasible goals starting from an imaginary premise, then took practical steps to get from here to there. The Trekkie, by contrast, couldn’t get a job on a Federation starship no matter what he did. At best he could have pursued an education and training in a STEM field and gotten a job related to aerospace. Otherwise he had nowhere to go outside of the fantasy life he borrowed from Gene Roddenberry.
Perhaps we can make a distinction between Cindy Jackson-like transhumanist goals and Trekkie-like transhumanist goals, where the former fall into the realm of current practicality.
I think the Trek guy could have developed a business based on Trekifying your home if he was interested and if he didn’t run afoul of copyright doing it.
Back in the late 1990′s the A&E Channel ran a series titled The Unexplained. Most episodes dealt with woo like ghosts, flying saucers and bigfoot. But one episode explored “human transformations.” It portrayed a guy who had become totally obsessed with the Star Trek universe and wanted to try to live in it as much as possible. So he rebuilt the interior of his house to resemble the sets from The Next Generation, wore reproduction Trek costumes, attended the conventions and pretty much adopted the stereotypical Trekkie loser lifestyle. As I recall, the show says that his wife wound up leaving him. (Apparently a Trek obsession can have the effect of lowering a man’s status.)
But that episode also profiled Cindy Jackson, who grew up as a plain-looking farm girl in Ohio yet aspired to try to look like her Barbie doll, and to try to live like a real-life Barbie. So when she came of age, she moved to London (and why wouldn’t Barbie live in London instead of a small town in Ohio?) and made a living there somehow as a rock musician. (That raises questions about the UK’s immigration laws. Can you get permission to live in the UK as an irregularly employed bohemian?) When her father died, she inherited some money and spent it on cosmetic procedures. She then capitalized on her improved appearance to move into more fashionable British social circles (I suspect as a kind of escort or courtesan, but the show didn’t say), somehow made more money, had more work done and eventually used her experiences with this branch of medicine to start a consulting business for other women who want cosmetic procedures:
http://www.cindyjackson.com/
Both of these individuals seem to have emotional problems they probably could have dealt with in more constructive ways. But I came away from watching that episode respecting Cindy a lot more than the Trekkie. You wouldn’t think so at first, but Cindy articulated feasible goals starting from an imaginary premise, then took practical steps to get from here to there. The Trekkie, by contrast, couldn’t get a job on a Federation starship no matter what he did. At best he could have pursued an education and training in a STEM field and gotten a job related to aerospace. Otherwise he had nowhere to go outside of the fantasy life he borrowed from Gene Roddenberry.
Perhaps we can make a distinction between Cindy Jackson-like transhumanist goals and Trekkie-like transhumanist goals, where the former fall into the realm of current practicality.
I think the Trek guy could have developed a business based on Trekifying your home if he was interested and if he didn’t run afoul of copyright doing it.
This is part of what I was trying to talk about http://lesswrong.com/lw/lt0/towards_a_theory_of_nerds_who_suffer/
The core idea is that such obsessions with fantasy mean hating your own life or self. It is not simply a hobby but escapism from reality.